Splotchspirit's Story
by Mossyheart
Summary: Splotchkit was hated by Clanmates. For something beyond her control: her fur.


**Hello, my fellow fanfictionists! I welcome you to another Mossyheart one-shot! Please read and review!**

"It's so ugly!"

Those three words were the first ones Splotchkit heard from her new Clanmates.

"I know! It's all…patchy!"

"Disgusting," a she-kit agreed with the two toms. "What in StarClan's name is wrong with it?"

Splotchkit opened her eyes. A heptad of kits jumped back.

"I…I can hear you. I have ears." Splotchkit twitched her black-furred ears back and forth. The kits turned away from her and talked quietly amongst themselves.

A tan-and-brown she-kit turned away from the group. "_Mother_ says we should ignore you." Splotchkit's black tail drooped. "But _I_ think you should come play with us!"

Splotchkit's ears perked up. The little she-kit beamed broadly.

"I'm Fallowkit," the leader she-cat told Splotchkit, "And these are my friends, Twigkit, Shimmerkit, Starlingkit, Beechkit, Oatkit, and Spiderkit.

"We're going to play a game called Mouse," Fallowkit explained. "Since you're the new kit, you get be it!"

"Really?" Fallowkit made it sound like such an honor. "How do I be 'it'?"

"Simple," big orange-and-white Twigkit puffed out his chest, "See that little crack over there?" He gestured with a flick of his tail to a slim crack in the rock face. Splotchkit nodded.

"What you do," beautiful little Shimmerkit took up explaining, "Is go in there."

Splotchkit nodded. So far it made sense to her.

"Well, you have to find this big oak leaf," Starlingkit informed her, fluffing out his black-and-white fur in excitement.

"It's on a shelf in the wall!" The tortoiseshell she-kit squeaked.

"Yep, like Beechkit said. Now, it smells pretty bad, but it'll hide your scent from the rest of us. And then me and Spiderkit lead you into the forest, and you have to hide."

Spiderkit took it over from Oatkit. "And _we'll_ be pretending we're a warrior hunting patrol, and we'll try and catch you before you make it to the stream. All you have to do is cross it, then you've won!"

"It sounds so fun!"

"Great! One more thing," Fallowkit's voice dropped so low that Splotchkit could barely hear her. "If you get seen by any of the older cats, you lose. Okay?"

"Okay!"

"Now get going!"

Splotchkit crept out of the den, ears pricked for the sounds of any older cats. She dashed for the crevice in the wall, and slipped inside it. Her nose twitched as sweet scents assaulted it. She crawled up the side and felt around for a narrow ledge, where Beechkit had told her it was. Splotchkit's hind legs scrabbled against the rocky surface until she pulled herself up.

Her nose led her to the big leaf with foul-smelling gunk, and -trying not to gag- Splotchkit rolled over in it. She climbed down the rock face and bounced out the crack. "I did it!"

"Shh!" Oatkit shushed her. She lowered her voice.

"Sorry."

"Now follow us." Oatkit and Spiderkit led Splotchkit to a bramble bush. She stared at the, puzzled.

"You crawl under it," Spiderkit told her. She obliged, despite the scraping thorns. Her escorts followed her lead, and they started off.

A short while later, before the sun had broken the horizon , Oatkit and Spiderkit stopped her.

"Okay, Splotchkit, this is where we leave you," Spiderkit told her.

"The stream's that way," Oatkit pointed west of them with his gray tail.

"Now me and Oatkit have to get back to the others. Good luck!"

And the pair plunged into the undergrowth. Splotchkit resumed her journey, and paid no heed to the shadows creeping after her.

Splotchkit's excitement didn't dampen the entire voyage through the forest. Her paws were pricked with thorns, and the gunk on her fur smelled stronger than ever, but she kept going with a spring in her step. _The big kits are letting you play with them, Splotchkit! Isn't it wonderful?_

Finally she reached the waterside. The sun was high in the sky, and the birds were chirruping in the trees. It was promising to be a beautiful day.

_They must be far behind me_, Splotchkit thought confidently. _I can take a break and wash this gunk off my fur._

First she tried licking it off, which only led to a sour taste in her mouth. Then she tried standing in the stream, which did the trick. Most of the filth was gone when she stepped out of the water. She plopped down on the bank and looked at her reflection.

Splotchkit never liked her reflection. Her back and most of her face was orange, but her legs, tail, ears, a long stripe on her spine, and a patch of fur over her left eye. Ut today she felt beautiful. The big kits were playing with her!

A snorting laughter informed her that she wasn't alone. Splotchkit whirled around and found Fallowkit, Twigkit, Shimmerkit, Starlingkit, Beechkit, Oatkit, and Spiderkit standing behind her.

"Well, I guess you caught me! Mouse for dinner!" Splotchkit's cheerful demeanor only made them snicker harder. "What?"

"Didn't Spiderkit tell you what happens if we catch up to you?" Starlingkit asked innocently.

"No," Splotchkit replied slowly, backing away as the septet of kits advanced.

"I thought you were supposed to tell her, Oatkit!" Spiderkit exclaimed, laughing.

"No, it was Beechkit!"

"Ah, well," Fallowkit cut off the good-natured bickering indifferently, "I guess we'll have to tell her now."

"Tell me what now?" Splotchkit was worried now, her amber eyes wide with concern.

"Shimmerkit? I believe you wanted to do this?" The quiet slender silver she-kit dipped her head once, then took a step forward.

"We get to push you into the river," Shimmerkit told her solemnly.

"What?" Splotchkit's mew was shrill. "I'll drown!"

Twigkit giggled. "Well, that's the whole point, silly!"

"You…" Splotchkit swallowed. "You're going to kill me?"

"Yes," Fallowkit beamed broadly. "Glad you understand. Start!"

Twigkit and Oatkit, as the biggest, leaped onto Splotchkit and wrestled her to the ground. She tried to yowl for help, but Twigkit clamped a paw over her mouth. "No _talking_," he purred.

Splotchkit failed her paws out, trying to catch the other kits, but they moved out of her way, snickering.

Starlingkit and Beechkit wrapped her paws and muzzle tightly with bindweed, and then they stepped back into the circle formed by the other kits.

"We're doing the Clan a favor, you know," Fallowkit announced. "As the youngest, we're the most innocent-looking."

"And that means we can get away with whatever we want!"

"Twigkit, _don't interrupt me_," Fallowkit warned. The orange-and-white tom shuffled his paws in embarrassment. "But yes, he's right. We can do whatever we wish and they won't be any the wiser. And, today, we took the new kit out to see the forest, and, oh no, a _fox_ attacked us! We tried to get her away from it but Splotchkit wasn't fast enough. The fox killed her." Fake tears flowed down Fallowkit's face.

"And now," Fallowkit's tears dried as fast as they came, "To destroy the evidence."

Twigkit and Oatkit picked Splotchkit up between them and tossed her into the water.

"Good-bye, Uglykit!" Shimmerkit cackled.

Splotchkit didn't know which way was up and which was down. She tried to failed her bound paws, but the bindweed held firm. Lack of air eventually overtook the young kit, and she passed out as a strong paw lifted her from the water.

**So, today I wrote a story about segregation in the world today. You see, Splotchkit was that one person who was different, whether skin color, race, or anything else that made her different than the others. Fallowkit, Twigkit, Shimmerkit, Starlingkit, Beechkit, Oatkit, and Spiderkit were like the rest of the world. They hated her because she was **_**strange**_** in their eyes. It didn't matter to them if she was just like them on the inside, but because she **_**looked**_** weird, they wanted to hurt her. They wanted to taunt her, bully her, anything they could do to make her hate herself.**

**The reason I wrote this was to prove, hey, it doesn't matter what you look like or what people think of you! Splotchkit was hated by her Clanmates because her fur pattern and that she was the kin of kittypet. But she rose above that, despite the pain it caused her.**

**After she was pulled from the river by a FallenClan cat called Kinktail. FallenClan took her in, raised her, nurtured her, loved her, and she grew to become the best-known warrior to ever live in FallenClan and it neighbors, SunClan, MoonClan, and TansyClan. Splotchspirit, named so for her kind, forgiving nature. She became deputy of FallenClan, and despite their hatred of her, sought out Fallowfeather, Twigfur, Shimmerslip, Starlingwing, Beechstorm, Oattuft, and Spiderpad at a Gathering, just to tell them she forgave them.**

**Splotchspirit died happy, in spite of her fur. She was a deputy, a mother, a mate, a friend, and, more importantly, a FallenClan warrior beloved by all her Clanmates.**

_**That's**_** the lesson our world needs to learn! **_**Forgive one another. See **_**past**_** the scars.**_

**And that's why I wrote this one-shot.**

_**-Mossyheart**_


End file.
